1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a job processing apparatus that performs job processing by using multiple electric power resources and a method of controlling the job processing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Apparatuses, such as electrophotographic multifunction peripherals (MFPs), printers, and facsimiles (FAXs), which require heat for image formation have hitherto required a large amount power in the image formation. In particular, a larger amount of power is consumed in fixing heaters and image data processing. In contrast, environments capable of using renewable energy generated by, for example, solar power generation or wind power generation are in widespread use as a recent approach to increase in energy saving consciousness and reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. The renewable energy generated by, for example, the solar power generation and the wind power generation is called green power.
However, the amount of power generation with the green power depends on the natural environment and the green power is not necessarily usable in apparatuses, such as the MFPs, which consume a large amount of power. For example, this applies to a case in which the amount of power consumption exceeds the power that can be supplied by the green power. In order to resolve this problem, technologies to automatically switch between the green power and commercial power supply and technologies to control the mixing ratio between the green power and the commercial power supply are known (for example, refer to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5-122855). In addition, since the power that can be supplied by the green power is varied with time and a difference may occur between the power required by the apparatus and the power that can be supplied by the green power, rechargeable secondary batteries are often used. Specifically, a configuration is used in which the secondary battery is charged with the power generated by the green power and the power used by the apparatus is selected from the secondary battery and the commercial power supply or the power resulting from mixture of the power generated by the secondary battery with the commercial power supply is used for the apparatus to supply the power that is selected or mixed to the apparatus.
A user instructs the MFP to perform any of a copy operation, a print operation, a scanning operation, and a facsimile (FAX) transmission operation as one job and the MFP processes the instructed job. In a FAX reception operation, a job is transmitted by facsimile from another FAX transmission apparatus to the MFP via a telephone line or a network and the MFP processes the transmitted job as one FAX reception job.
A typical MFP that processes such jobs is featured in that a large amount of power is required in the execution of a job while a small amount of power is used in a standby mode. In addition, different amounts of power are required for different jobs. Accordingly, also when the green power is used to execute a job, the green power may not be used depending on the amount of power generated with the green power and the type of the job. In configurations using the secondary batteries for the green power, there are cases in which the amount of power resulting from addition of the amount of power accumulated in the secondary batteries to the power that is generated during the execution of jobs is insufficient for the amount of power necessary for the execution of the jobs. When the amounts of power is insufficient for the execution of the jobs, the power is supplied from the commercial power supply, as in the case disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5-122855.
The MFP is also featured in that multiple users are capable of using the MFP via a network. Accordingly, jobs that have been executed may be counted for every user or for every group to which each user belongs for charge. The environment in which the green power is introduced has a challenge in that the jobs are separately counted depending on whether the green power is used or the commercial power supply is used to reflect the result of the counting in the charge. Specifically, since the availability of the green power is increased during periods of time when the amount of power generation with the green power is large and during periods of time when the MFP is less used, lower rates are charged during such periods of time. This allows the use of the green power to be promoted.